So What, Who Cares (vol 1, issue 9) Why your face wash is killing us all

La rentrée is in full swing, the Labor Day Fun hangover is also in full effect, and there is news to be examined. Let's get to it.

You can stop beating yourself up for not assembling IKEA furniture correctly because the finished image you see in the catalog is composed of pixels and not particle board. According to one lengthy piece in a publication aimed at digital artists, IKEA's communications team relies on computer-generated imagery to provide 75% of the images in their catalogs. There are two driving forces behind IKEA's push toward increasing pretend-photos of its stock: First, building prototypes and shipping them around for creative teams to photograph is expensive and slow. (And we all know Ikea's about cheap and efficient.) Second, having an extensive stock library on hand allows the in-house communications team to craft catalogs and other collateral with very country- or culture-specific messaging.

So what? Computer-monkeying with products for marketing purposes is not new -- I once hired a production editor whose college internship was basically "photoshop different colors onto these t-shirts for the Gap's website." What this points to is proof that the standards being set in commercial advertising are almost entirely divorced from the actual, physical objects you're buying. Be on the lookout for some retail guru tossing out a buzzword to define this gap, much in the same way we basically equate "uncanny valley" with "creepy Robert Zemeckis films."

Who cares? Some folks find IKEA unsettling for a few different reasons, among them the idea that its production chain and de-emphasis on craftsmanship actually dis-empower the consumer. Per Ellen Ruppel Shell's interview with philosopher Matthew B. Crawford in Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture, "Having mastery over our own stuff is very satisfying, and we've traded that for convenience. In a sense, we don't really own the stuff, we lease it. And I think that haunts us." To be given a catalog that actually removes physical stuff entirely from the sales pitch for physical items ... that's another level of convenience and another level of removal of mastery.

So clearly, the big winners here are the rebels at IKEA Hackers, who are taking that purported disintermediation of stuff and turning it inside out by using Expedit in new and exciting ways.

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If your grooming products use microbeads, you are part of a big problem. VICE is the latest to report on how the teeny weeny plastic beads that allegedly exfoliate without tearing your skin to shreds move on to a rich and awful second career as wee toxin-absorbing sponges, then take the act on the road to the Great Lakes, where they're poisoning 20% of the world's freshwater supply and the animals that live there. Although Illinois has already banned the sales of microbead-containing products, it remains to be seen whether the ban will stop people who figure fresh water, shmesh water, their blackheads are more of an emergency.

So what? Researchers have been sounding the alarm on microbeads for about ten years, and cosmetics companies like Unilever have been trying to get out in front of a PR nightmare by announcing pre-emptive phase-outs of the microbeads.

Who cares? If you care at all about the health of our waterways, this is news to keep following. Banning a product in one state does not mean the microbeads are going to honor state lines and not float across the border. A comprehensive industry ban of the beads is probably going to be what it takes to stop the introduction of new pollutants.

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Speaking of water, the American Southwest had better get used to not having any for a while. We're in the middle of what climate scientists are now calling "a historically relevant megadrought." What makes a megadrought? According to USA Today, "Megadroughts are defined more by their duration than their severity. They are extreme dry spells that can last for a decade or longer, according to research meteorologist Martin Hoerling of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration."

So what? In a bit of related news, China is also experiencing its own drought, which means that we are unlikely to see the U.S. market flooded with cheap imported Chinese produce. (In fact, because China imports billions of dollars in U.S. crops annually, our droughts occasionally their food prices substantially. Not this year -- they're sitting on grain surpluses.)

Who cares? Back to the States ... Droughts mean less water -- and that means that the water-intensive agriculture sectors in California and Arizona (which has a $6.6 billion agriculture industry of its own) are going to be passing their increased watering costs on to consumers around the country. The cost of produce is going to rise again -- which could, in turn, exacerbate health issues in lower-income families, as research shows that when produce prices rise, lower-income families buy less fresh fruit and veg and their children's BMI rises -- laying the groundwork for later woes like diabetes.

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Your facile pop-culture note of the day ...

... is mostly absent because I spent the last four days being an attentive, hands-on parent, taking the kiddo to museums, and maker faires with actual blacksmithing, and hikes through the Marin headlands, and hosting 20-person cookouts, and so on. Darn real life fun getting in the way of escapist fun!